Whither the District’s Adult Job Training Money?

If you have been following the work of the DC Jobs Council for the past few years, you may remember all of our hard work to get local funds for adult job training in the District’s budget. Thanks in large part to Councilmembers Marion Barry (who got $4.6 million in the FY2010 Budget Support Act of 2009) and Michael Brown (who saved the FY2010 money, and got $4.6 million more in the FY2011 budget), the District made a commitment to fund job training for adults facing barriers to employment, and to disburse those funds via an RFP process.

The DCJC has been following up – relentlessly, some would say – with elected officials and staff in both the executive and legislative branches of the District government to ensure these local funds were spent effectively. After much effort, we can report on what has happened to the local funds budgeted for job training for DC adults.

First, none of the money budgeted in FY2010 for adult training was actually spent in FY2010. The DC Council made the funds nonlapsing, so they rolled over for use for the same purpose in FY2011. That gave us approximately $9.2 million in local funds for adult job training to use in FY2011.

According to the DC Department of Employment Services and the office of the District’s Chief Financial Officer, the money was spent as follows:

Reprogrammed by then-outgoing-Mayor Adrian Fenty to cover severance pay for departing senior-level staff	$500,000
To The Excel Institute, as directed by a mayoral earmark in the FY2011 Budget Request Act	$600,000
To Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School to support training programs in culinary arts, nursing, and information technology	$2,200,000
To replace funds designated to support DOES’ Transitional Employment Program (Project Empowerment)	$3,500,000
Other expenses	$300,000

For those of you keeping score, that totals $8.1 million, leaving $1.1 million for FY2011. Some of that $1.1 million is being held to ensure DOES is able to fund all of the Individual Training Accounts (ITAs) to which it has committed. Any funds unspent by the end of FY2011 will roll over to FY2012.

A bit more explanation of some of the expenditures may be helpful.

Then-Mayor Fenty earmarked $600,000 for The Excel Institute in the FY2011 Budget Request Act of 2010. The funds were to be used to support Excel’s automotive service training program. And in the Budget Support Act for the same year, $2.2 million in local funds were directed toward a DC nonprofit that (1) offered training programs in culinary arts, nursing, and information technology; (2) could serve 300 clients immediately; and (3) could demonstrate a placement rate of at least 90 percent. Carlos Rosario is the only nonprofit in the District that met all of the criteria.

We should note at this point that The Excel Institute and Carlos Rosario are excellent organizations that provide high-quality programs and services to their clients. Our concern is not with the fact that these entities received funding, but rather that the RFP process laid out in the authorizing legislation was not followed.

The need for DOES to transfer funds between agency line items to support the Transitional Employment Program is a bit more troubling. For some time, the District has been using excess monies from the Workers’ Compensation Trust Fund to support TEP. Recently, it came to light that such a practice might be impermissible. Until the question is resolved, the District cannot use the excess dollars in the Trust Fund. To keep the TEP functioning, the city had to find another source of funds. As TEP serves adults, the local funds allocated for adult job training seemed a logical choice.

Again, our question is not about the Transitional Employment Program. We question the process by which the decision was made – a process that left out not only the public, but the DC Council as well.

We recognize that we cannot go backwards and undo these decisions. But we can ask that the District government move forward by ensuring that the local funds set aside in the FY2012 budget for adult job training are used for that purpose, and that the funds are disbursed via a transparent and rigorous RFP process.

We understand from Acting DOES Director Lisa Mallory that RFPs for adult job training will be issued very early in FY2012. She promised that these RFPs will ask a lot of prospective providers in terms of data collection and outcomes. But she also promised a commitment to clarity and to transparency throughout the process, a commitment we find encouraging.

We’ll be watching and keeping you informed every step of the way.

DC's $4.6M Local Adult Job Training Money -- What's the Status?

Welcome to WORK IN THE CITY, the blog of the DC Jobs Council!

In this, our first post, we thought we’d tell you a story. It is not a terribly happy story, and it is complicated – but it is important this story be told. We hope that you can help us write the ending.

In May 2009, Councilmember Marion Barry, then chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia’s Committee on Housing and Workforce Development (CHWFD), moved approximately $5.4M in local funds from the DC Department of Employment Services’ (DOES) budget to support job training programs offered by community-based organizations to those adults facing the highest barriers to employment. This funding would be used to train more than the 50,000 underemployed or unemployed DC residents who struggle every day to make ends meet. Language in the FY2010 Budget Support Act of 2009 specified how that funding was to be distributed and spent – on programs that trained hard-to-employ District adults for good, career-ladder jobs in industries with strong prospects for growth.

Finally, we thought, those who needed the most help were going to get it. Like most jurisdictions around the country, the District was going to put its own money into training its own residents for jobs. We hoped this effort would help address the unemployment rate, but also help us begin to change this statistic: more than 70 percent of jobs in the District are held by those who live outside of Washington.

With the horse-trading that is part of any District budget process, the amount that eventually made its way into the DOES budget for adult job training was $4.6M. That money was available to spend as of October 1, 2009.

It is now the beginning of August 2010. And none of the money has been spent. According to CFO$ource, the money is still sitting – unencumbered – in DOES’ account. No RFPs, asking for proposals from organizations that provide job training to District adults, have been issued.

When questioned by the current CHWFD chairman, Michael A. Brown, in May 2010, DOES Director Joseph P. Walsh promised that the $4.6M would be spent as intended – on job training for those adults facing the highest barriers. He explained that the local funds had not been spent yet because DOES was concentrating on spending federal funds allocated to the District through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – funds which had an earlier expiration date. But he assured Councilmember Brown that the local funds would be spent by fiscal year end, and as directed.

That was nearly five months ago. While DOES has issued grants based on four RFPs funded with federal money, we are still waiting for one RFP using local money.

This delay has not gone unnoticed.

During negotiations regarding the FY2011 District budget, several Councilmembers asked about the $4.6M. When informed that it had not yet been spent –and that DOES had not even indicated how or when it might be spent --two Councilmembers sprang into action.

Councilmember Kwame Brown, for example, proposed that DOES issue an RFP so narrowly drawn that only one nonprofit in the District is eligible for the funding. (This is not an uncommon practice in the post-Council-earmark era. We’ll leave a discussion of the pros and cons for another post.)

But the problem remains. Even a narrowly-drawn RFP has to be issued and proposals reviewed before even the $2.25M can be spent. And that has not happened.

And if the remaining money -- which could be as much as $2.35M -- is not spent, Councilmember Barry has plans for that. He has proposed to allocate the remaining funds to the Community College of the District of Columbia. While we welcome the institution – a very necessary component of a strong workforce development system -- a community college cannot substitute for a community-based job training provider for those District adults who need training most – those facing the highest barriers to employment, including low literacy levels, criminal records, and physical and mental health challenges. The Community College is not designed to meet the needs of these most challenged residents.

It is now the beginning of August 2010. Despite repeated requests to DOES, neither the DC Jobs Council nor several of its members have received any concrete answers as to plans for the $4.6M.

If a process is not implemented immediately, it is possible – even likely -- that funds set aside to help move the most vulnerable of DC residents into jobs will either disappear or be diverted.

The fiscal year ends in roughly 60 days. What do you think we should do next? How can we ensure a happy ending to this story for those who need resources the most?